Given
Wendell Berry
Top 10 Best Quotes
“There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.”
“How to be a Poet (to remind myself)i Make a place to sit down. Sit down. Be quiet. You must depend upon affection, reading, knowledge, skill—more of each than you have—inspiration work, growing older, patience, for patience joins time to eternity… ii Breathe with unconditional breath the unconditioned air. Shun electric wire. Communicate slowly. Live a three-dimensional life; stay away from screens. Stay away from anything that obscures the place it is in. There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places. iii Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it. Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.”
“The soil under the grass is dreaming of a young forest, and under the pavement the soil is dreaming of grass.”
“I dream of a quiet man who explains nothing and defends nothing, but only knows where the rarest wildflowers are blooming, and who goes, and finds that he is smiling not by his own will. Sabbaths 1999 II”
“A tree forms itself in answer to its place and the light. Explain it how you will, the only thing explainable will be your explanation.” Sabbaths 1999 IV”
“I’ve come down from the sky like some damned ghost, delayed too long…To the abandoned fields the trees returned and grew. They stand and grow. Time comes To them, time goes, the trees Stand; the only place They go is where they are. Those wholly patient ones… They do no wrong, and they Are beautiful. What more Could we have thought to ask?... I stand and wait for light to open the dark night. I stand and wait for prayer to come and find me here.” Sabbaths 2000 IX”
“…it charms mere eyesight to believe The nearest thing not trees Is the sky, into which The trees reach, opening their luminous new leaves… and thought finds rest beneath a brightened tree In which, unseen, a warbler feeds and sings. His song’s Small shapely melody Comes down irregularly, as all light’s givings come.” Sabbaths 1999 III”
“the inlet our friend looks as he did when we first knew him, and until I wake I believe I will die of grief, for I know that this boy grew into a man who was a faithful friend who died.”
“We travelers, walking to the sun, can’t see Ahead, but looking back the very light That blinded us shows us the way we came, Along which blessings now appear, risen As if from sightlessness to sight, and we, By blessing brightly lit, keep going toward That blessed light that yet to us is dark. Sabbaths 1999 VI”
“I know for a while again the health of self-forgetfulness. Sabbaths 2000 V”
Except where otherwise noted, all rights reserved to the author(s) of this book (mentioned above). The content of this page serves solely as promotional material for the aforementioned book. If you enjoyed these quotes, you can support the author(s) by acquiring the full book from Amazon.
Book Keywords:
quietness, nature, light, memory, loss, breathing, prayer, how-to-be-a-poet, wildflowers, poems, sacred, dreams, poetry, beauty, desecrated, poet
